I'd add "Panic" to the list of choices of course...
Every homeowner must adjust to the new realities in real estate. How to think through your three options.
Signs are a-popping that the era of explosive home-price gains is kaput for at least the next few years.
In the past four months, the median asking price has fallen 5 percent or more in Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix and Washington, D.C., reports blogger Ben Engebreth's Housing Tracker Web site, which compiles weekly data on 49 cities.
Across the United States, the number of existing homes sold fell 1.7 percent in November, while the supply of homes continued to tick higher.
Real estate agents in formerly redhot markets like San Diego and Boston say that open houses are getting little traffic.
"At the height of the frenzy, properties sold after one to three days on the market, with multiple offers," says ReMax realtor Mary Kaljian, whose Los Banos office is 75 miles southeast of San Jose. "Now we are looking at six to eight weeks -- or longer. It's becoming a buyer's market."
January 22, 2006
Real Estate: Buy, sell, hold?
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2 comments:
Six to eight weeks? Wait to sellers here six to eight months.
My first comment is that housing markets are local not regional. There is a tremendous difference in submarkets. It is almost silly to talk about an area like Washington DC that is expected to add 70,000 jobs this year and say that the market as a whole is going to go down 5%. Certain submarkets in Washington are going to go up 10% this year. With 70,000 new jobs projected for the region in 2006 and a shortage of housing stock where is the 5% overall decline coming from? This brings me to my second comment, the self fullfilling prophecy. If you talk about a bubble enough it will happen. We are already seing investors get out of the market because of all of the speculation on the housing bubble. It is most unfortunate that some of the talk of the bubble is for purely political reasons. In some markets the statistics don't support the talk of a bubble. The reality is that as long as our country continues to grow, the economic engine will continue to fuel the housing market. There will certainly be differences in certain markets and submarkets but overall, only dramatic political change or simultaneous catastrophe's will dramaticly slow the housing market.
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